Le vertige des sens

David DeCoteau directs this fairly pleasing movie that showcases the abilities and physical assets of its female cast to good effect. In fact, it often plays like an exercise in titillation *sometimes* interrupted by a story. DeCoteau does go out of his way to stylize the movie, working with whatever minimal budget he must have had. Set to a pulsating electronic music score by Del Casher, it features characters capable of earning our sympathies.

Ken Abraham ("Creepozoids") is cast as Chris Thompson, an amiable young stud hired to work as a houseboy for well-off couple Stewart (Jan-Michael Vincent) and Charlotte Moreland (Mindi Miller, billed as 'Ty Randolph'). Stewart has tired of the marriage, but is told by his lawyer Evan Weiss (Jack Carter) that because there was no pre-nup, he'd have to split everything 50-50 with Charlotte. While he tries to come up with a way to work around this, the lonely Charlotte turns on the heat and has a sexual tryst with Chris, who feels pangs of guilt because he already has a girlfriend, sweet aspiring actress Michelle Arno (Linnea Quigley).

When it comes to the DeCoteau filmography, one must expect a certain lack of slickness and negligible acting - most of the time, anyway. This one, at least, is reasonably compelling in a sordid and sad way. Not that this will matter to many viewers, who will watch it for the titillation factor and be rewarded with a regular helping of sex and nudity - both female and male. This takes up a substantial amount of the run time, which is fortunately fairly trim (just over 80 minutes) in a B movie tradition.

Quigley is adorable, and she and her co-stars Miller, Michelle Bauer, and Ruth Collins all look great. Ms. Millers' performance as the voyeuristic and ultimately disturbed Charlotte is a definite highlight.

Seven out of 10.

A typically cheap David DeCoteau production that was shot in 5 days, but without any of the campy fun of some of his other works like Nightmare Sisters or Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama. It's a competently made erotic thriller, but lacking any real style or narrative slow. Nudity fans get a good amount of equal opportunity skin from both men and women, but the script feels like it was written on the spot and all the actors seem like they're reading from a teleprompter.

It's usually a rule of thumb that when a film goes direct to video without a big screen release it's a stinker. Deadly Embrace is one law abiding movie in that regard.

This film essentially erases the line between drama and soft core porn. Lucky Ken Abraham he gets to bed two beautiful women.

Abraham gets hired by married couple Jan-Michael Vincent and Mindi Miller. Vincent is getting tired of Miller and wants to trade her in for a younger model. But his lawyer Jack Carter it's going to cost you big time, maybe cheaper to keep her.

The hunky pool boy/gardener they just hired might be the answer. Jan's not touching Mindy lately so she's good and horny. Just have pool boy gardener move in and wait for the inevitable.

Abraham is quite the looker, not much in the acting department. He does have some marathon sex scenes with Miller and his girlfriend Leanna Quigley.

20 years earlier it would have been Vincent as the hunky pool boy. Time changes all things.

Anyway soft core porn fans go for it.

While being a far from exact science, thus far, my 'watch as many Linnea Quigley horror movies as possible' has generously yielded a goodly many titillatingly tasty horror treats from this most delectable of hard-bodied Scream Queens, and this serially smutty, late night flesh-peddlar about a persistently philandering husband (Jan-Michael Vincent), his bored, grossly neglected increasingly neurotic wife, and their young, lusty, altogether handsy handyman coalesce into deliciously steamy celluloid overkill, all of this heady, sweaty-palmed B-Movie ooze given additional zest with the preternaturally perky presence of bodaciously pop-topping, hot-botting creamy 80s scream dream Linnea Quigley, and I found much trashy edification in this smouldering hot 'Deadly Embrace'. Boozy cooze-hound Jan-Michael Vincent amusingly made for a suitably sleazy slime-bag in this low budget, body glossy, steamily skeevey, fleshy fabulous, garishly voyeuristic, psycho-headed soft gore suburban romp that'll get far more than your neighbour's curtain's twitching!

Jan Michael Vincent puts in one of Hollywood's most wooden performances as a philandering husband bizarrely determined to resist the obvious charms of his wife, the gorgeous Ty Randolph.

Randolph manages to skilfully combine poignancy and a charged eroticism to her role as the neglected and ultimately disturbed wife.

Ultimately, the poor plot and acting performances of the other principals condemns Deadly Embrace to mediocrity.